On Writing

[This entry from fall 2005 was posted on my old blog that is now closing.]


If asked why I am blogging, my answer would have to be because of Bettie Skelton, past colleague as an educator with me at Bellin School of Nursing (now Bellin College), and later Bellin VP of Nursing (my boss) when I was Director of Bellin Hospice. Bettie has always been a model of Christian love for me. A professional who wore her Savior on her sleeve. Gave me courage to do it!
Well, a bit ago she challenged me to write something for publication. But, alas, my writing is so for me and my mental health, that that wasn't something appealing to me at the time.
When this blog opportunity came up on AOL, I thought, shoot, I'll try it. And so far it's been good, an adventure.
This was the eeeeeeee I sent back to Bettie after she sent me her thoughts on my writing. I share it because I want to validate any professional who chooses to be a bit more personal than scholarly :)
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Ah, what education does for us!
After I had done my first BS in Human Biology/Growth and Development, and decided I wanted an MS in nursing, I had to complete my nursing BS before I would be considered for entrance into the MS program at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. I did that at Bellin College of Nursing. [The school where I had previously been an instructor myself! My basic education was a 3 year diploma also from Bellin School of Nursing in Green Bay, WI. I have a long history there.]
I must admit I started that program with distress, not understanding why I had to relearn things I knew, so to make it palatable, I began to search for the new information I could learn in each class, and I always found it.
It was often a long, arduous search, but it kept my mind busy.
In the class on the Nursing Process what I learned new was not welcomed by me, and certainly not part of the course content. It was a challenge to how I thought of myself and my skills.
We had to write a paper on what the nursing process was. I recall one passage I wrote that I thought was the heart, essence, and meaning of the NP. I remember it quite well. It was something like this:
The nursing process is not a stagnant thought written on a piece of cardstock paper, tucked in a Kardex that stays in the nurses station. No, the nursing process lives in the hearts of nurses. It creeps up and down hospital halls on cat's feet.....checking, responding, changing in the beat of a heart.....this way, then that. That is the Nursing Process.
It became one of those really big downers. The kind that hurts so bad one puts it away on the shelf for a while, then later, in disbelief, pulls its out again.
Looks.
Wonders.
Can this really be true?
Decides one was wrong.
What was written on that paper of my heart was: Your writing style is too casual for professional nursing. You need to work on a more scholarly style.
So I did.
And later I started grad school and wrote as scholarly as I could, which was always a struggle for me.
But then, ahhhhhhhh, but then, there was another teacher.
She asked us to write a paper on our own personal model of nursing, How I Practice Nursing.
Well, this was license for me not to try to be scholarly. And I put pen to paper, heart to thought. And I wrote my model of nursing: A Spiritual Model. And I let every ounce of what I believe about people, health, nursing, spirit flow into that paper. I told stories about personal nursing experiences to demonstrate my thinking. And I put emotion into it all, because there was emotion in it all.
A circle represented the individual. Nursing was around it, and sometimes nursing dipped into the circle of the individual, and sometimes the individual dipped into the encircling nurse. [Oh, the countless times the patient has done more for me than I for him!] The core of the circle was God, with spokes coming out, bathing and encircling ALL.
That was my model.
God did the nursing. God in us did the nursing.
I held my breath. I came to class.
And the prof talked about a model, a nursing model she had never seen anything like. She asked ME to present my model to the class!
I got a perfect score. A-ha.
Vindicated.
After that I threw a lot of my heart into all my graduate work. My thesis is sometimes scholarly, sometimes not. But always, always, it is full of heart.
So, when you say you like to read my words, I am encouraged. Since I have started eeeeeeeeeeeing people my feelings about things, I have stopped journaling. I find that amazing. I journaled since I was about 25, and I have notebook after notebook offeelings..................I did turn one into a book called Gentle Souls that Tap Dance. But I did that drunk, and it would take a different shape today, different ending, thank God, LOL. (Can't read all of it anymore. Wine spilled on some pages, :)
Regardless, my eeeeeeeeeeeing my thoughts is one of the important mental health things I do. My fingers do the walking over the keyboard, heal my heart, steel my backbone, and give me courage. And I never know exactly where those little devils are gonna take me when I lay them down!
Makes life exciting.